Our Angels and Those Dodgers at the Big A Tonight : It’s the Biggest Game in Town

Baseball fan Robert Montano sat munching a burrito in a left field bleacher seat at Anaheim Stadium on Thursday. It had been nearly six months since major league baseball was last played there, but it was still a bit too early for the next game.

Nevertheless, as he ate his lunch and gazed at the newly sodded playing field, the 27-year-old Montano could imagine the crack of a bat, the roar of a crowd and the Angels losing their first game of 1987 at the “Big A.”

“I’m a Dodger fan,” said Montano, who also happens to be a member of the Anaheim Stadium maintenance crew.

Here Come the Dodgers

Tonight at 7:35, one of the premier sporting events of the season will get under way at the Big A. The dreaded Dodgers come to town for games tonight and Saturday in Anaheim, then both squads head north on Interstate 5 to wrap up the exhibition game series on Sunday in Dodger Stadium.

These “meaningless” pre-season games are expected to even outdraw the Angels’ regular season opener on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the team said.

For only the second year in a row, the opening-day game will be played as few Big League games are these days--in the sunlight. Because it will be played in the daytime on a weekday--and will compete with jobs and school--it will be difficult for many fans to attend.

The stadium sales office would release no figures Thursday, saying only that ticket sales are going well. Last year’s opening-day game drew a crowd of 37,489.

By contrast, 45,000 to 50,000 fans are expected for tonight’s Freeway Series opener and at least another 60,000 for Saturday’s game, team officials said.

“You’ve got a mixture of Dodgers and Angels fans here (in Southern California), and there aren’t many times you can see them together,” said Gordon Hygham, 59, who traveled from Chino Thursday morning to stand in line for tickets outside the stadium.

What of the World Series?

The only other opportunity to see these rivals head to head, Montano said, would be if “it comes down to the World Series.”

“That would be great! But it always seems like when the Dodgers do good, the Angels don’t make it, and when the Angels do good, the Dodgers don’t make it.”

There’s a little more drama this year: Going into the weekend series, the Dodgers have won 25 and the Angeles have won 25.

And there was excitement, if not drama, when, before noon on Thursday, a stadium tour guide led a group of children and parents through the Angels dugout, the visitors’ bullpen and hidden, mysterious places beneath the stands, rarely seen by fans.

Just about everyone else at the stadium Thursday was gearing up for baseball. Souvenir manager Sam Maida of Szabo Food Service was tallying lists of memorabilia that will go on sale the moment gates open an hour and half before the game.

New Season, New Inventory

“Things are ready,” said Maida, who added that a new season also brings a new inventory.

“We have a couple of new jackets and baseball gloves. We never used to carry actual gloves. The gloves will go for 10 bucks.”

The tickets themselves go for $3 to $8, depending on where you want to sit and how many people get there ahead of you.

Apparently, quite a few had gotten there ahead of Hygham, who said dejectedly that the ticket sellers “didn’t have anything decent” for the Saturday game.

Instead, he settled for tickets to the Angels’ opening day against the Seattle Mariners.